I was finishing up a book called “Start With Why” written by Simon Sinek this weekend and one of the last chapters in the book spoke to me and one of the challenges I face constantly with my clients. Too often I hear from clients about how they started a program, did really well, achieved some goals then quit the program. My question to these clients generally is well what is going to make this time different? This challenge is getting a client to start figuring out the difference between achievement and success. We cannot have success without achievement but for many of us we have achievement without success. What in heck does that mean???

Let me start by explaining the difference between the two. Achievement is something we reach or attain, like all of the goals written on the goal wall at KORE. Achievement is measurable, we can tell when we reach our goal (as long as our goal is specific). Success however, is a feeling or state of being. Success is when the things we once struggled so much with become easy. The problem is that most people hit the achievement then fall of the wagon and never reach the level of success they sought out in the first place.

Say you want to be more fit and you set a goal of running a 5k. You download your little running app and set off to train for your first 5K. You train religiously and the day of the race comes with you achieving your goal. The next day you decide you’re going to bask in the glory of your achievement and you take a day off, a day becomes a week then a month, and eventually you’re back where you started. Sound familiar? It should, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t done this in some way. But why do we all do this?

Well because we focus on the achievement as the success. Or as Simon Sinek says, “achievement comes when you pursue and attain WHAT you want. Success comes when you are in clear pursuit of WHY you want it. The former is motivated by tangible factors while the latter by something deeper in the brain…”

Only when you figure out WHY you want to achieve the goals you have written on the wall and focus on that why, will you learn to look past the little achievements to achieve the success you’ve been looking for all along. What’s your why?